In June 2025, r-LightBioCom achieved another key project milestone: the successful completion of a comprehensive environmental impact assessment (Life Cycle Assessment, LCA) for the project’s bio-based resins, natural fibres, and recycling processes. The goal was to evaluate the ecological performance of materials and end-of-life options developed in the project: from raw materials to disposal or recycling.
The r-LightBioCom project aims to reduce the environmental impact of its newly developed lightweight high-performance composites (HPCs) not only during production, but also throughout their use phase and at their end-of-life. Life cycle assessment (LCA) plays a central role in this effort by providing comprehensive insights into the environmental impacts of materials and processes. Through comparative LCA studies, the project assesses whether its innovative HPC solutions offer lower environmental impacts than conventional alternatives, ensuring sustainability targets are addressed from production to final disposal or recycling.
To perform this evaluation, project partner CIDAUT, leading the LCA activities, carried out detailed assessments of the bio-resins, fibres, nanofillers, and recycling technologies developed in the project. The analysis was based on high-quality data provided by the project partners: Hochschule Kaiserslautern (University of Applied Sciences), AEP Polymers, and Leibniz-Institut für Verbundwerkstoffe for resins; Hochschule Kaiserslautern and AITEX for fibres; Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) for nanofillers; and FeyeCon and Fábrica Española de Confecciones SA (FECSA) for recycling processes. The ReCiPe 2016 methodology was applied, allowing for a broad range of impact categories to be assessed, including climate change, human toxicity, ecosystem impacts, and resource depletion.
In order to carry out a robust comparative assessment of the environmental performance of materials and recycling processes, the project’s materials and recycling technologies were systematically compared with conventional solutions. This included benchmarking the bio-based resins against fossil-based epoxy systems, natural fibres against standard glass and carbon fibres, and innovative recycling methods against widely used end-of-life options such as incineration, landfilling, mechanical recycling, pyrolysis, solvolysis, and fluidised bed processes.
Results for bio-based epoxy systems developed within the project were compelling with a CO2-footprint reduction per kg of over 90% in some cases. The use of natural fibres also delivers clear ecological advantages. Flax and hemp fibres exhibit very low CO2 footprints. For both natural fibres, the CO2 footprint was even negative, due to carbon sequestration during plant growth, offsetting the CO2 impact of the other stages of the fibre’s life cycle. They also outperform conventional glass and carbon fibres in additional impact categories, including non-carcinogenic toxicity and terrestrial ecotoxicity.
Recycling methods were another key focus of the assessment. Alongside established techniques like pyrolysis, solvolysis, fluidised bed, and mechanical recycling, and conventional options such as incineration, and landfilling, the innovative supercritical CO2 (sc-CO2) process developed in the project was also evaluated. All methods were assessed based on key criteria such as efficiency, energy consumption, waste generation, and material recovery. The sc-CO2 process stood out by enabling recovery of up to 90% of fibres with preserved quality. While current emissions remain relatively high due to ethanol use, the process shows strong potential for further optimisation.
This milestone provides a strong foundation for the upcoming environmental assessments within r-LightBioCom. The results confirm the potential of the project’s bio-based materials and innovative recycling approaches can substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, toxicological impacts, and resource use across the entire life cycle. Ultimately, they support the project’s overarching goal to develop lightweight, circular, and sustainable composites.
The next phase of the project will focus on extending the LCA to cover processing technologies and carrying out full cradle-to-grave evaluations of the demonstrator components. These upcoming analyses will further guide the ecological optimisation of composite solutions from production to end-of-life.
